


whats in a name

by ZPumpkin



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, i dont know how to do platonic relationship tags yet, spoilers episode 49
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-17 07:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17555954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZPumpkin/pseuds/ZPumpkin
Summary: After realizing two of her friends have different names, Beau's been thinking. How easy is it to change your name? How long it takes before the new one becomes yours?Who better to accidentally bring this up with than Fjord.





	whats in a name

Beau’s with Fjord on second watch and they’re stuck like a hundred fucking feet under the ground in a cave made by a giant worm. And it’s not like she’s claustrophobic but she’s started getting some bad associations with enclosed spaces. They tend to have hydras, or crazy underwater witches, or shithead slavers and iron cages. After all that shit, she’s allowed a little nervousness, just waiting for the fucking worm to show up and eat Nott. Veth. Fucking names.

She gets using fake ones. Caleb-Brenn was on the run from the real powers of the empire, Nott became a whole different species after fucking dying; Beau’s used fake names so she could sell her dad’s wine to sleazbags in a tavern.

All told, she’s jittery enough that Fjord is giving her a hard side-eye and she’s had to be reintroduced to two of the people she actually gives a shit about in this world in the last day. She just blurts out, rushed and thoughtless, “So your names’ really Fjord?”

He startles a bit, she can see his fairy-light glowing eyes widen in the dark (and fuck darkvision eyes, really, even Caleb’s got em now, little specks of blue shining in the night.)

“Yeah,” Fjord says. He’s turned, half-leaned against the cavern wall, not quite looking at her like he does when he’s caught by surprise. “Well. Kinda. Wasn’t given to me, I had to make it like, uh, Caleb and Nott did.” A pause. “No surname, either, I know ya’ll have been curious about that.”

“You didn’t make your own surname?” Beau asks, and a reflex you-asshole voice in her head chimes in. She’s one to talk about surnames, especially to an orphan.

Fjord takes it in stride. He gets her, like that. “Nah. Didn’t see much point. Just a family name without a family to back it. Empty currency, y’know?”

He’s done after that, it seems, waiting for her to carry this on or bail. She’s leaned back on her elbows and hands, sprawled out lazily, hiding how her fingers are clawing into the dust and rock to keep herself here. Cause there’s something stumbling through her thick skull and it feels important and way too careful for her, a mouth that makes a real sailor double-take working through something soft.

“I’m, uh. Well, not like it fucking matters cause I’m all but disowned at this point. I’m Beauregard Lionett.” God, just the sound of it, even dulled in this cave, it churns in her gut, makes her neck go hot and prickly. Too many speeches, too many dead names on a piece of fucking wood held up like an idol. _Legacy, Beauregard_. She wants to stop, wants to punch something, and she’s pretty damn sure she’s skinned her knuckles on the floor. “It’s a pretentious shit name with a lot of fucked up garbage carried on it so I wouldn’t mind sharing it with someone halfway fucking decent.”

When Fjord says “What,” Beau wants to crawl right back up out of the dirt and die in shame because she thinks she has to say all that again. Her whole face is burning now. Fuck feelings and fuck sentiment and fuck her clumsy mouth. 

The silence closes in while Beau prays he somehow hears the echo of it. Fjord snorts. “I’m assuming this ain’t like a marriage thing.”

“Oh fuck no. Sorry, not my type. Pretty sure I’m not yours either.”

“Probably not.” Fjord scratches at his lip, like his stubble itches, and Beau _tsks_ at him before he goes chipping his tusk. Another snort, softer this time. “If that’s your proposition to adopt a man older than you, it’s not the worst I ever heard.” 

“That sounds weirdly kinky.”

“Aw fucking hell Beau.” A thunk as he hits his head against the wall, exasperated fondness. She chuckles. Making Fjord uncomfortable is way more comfortable territory, for both of them she hopes. 

A voice from the side, Jester’s bright baby-blue eyes opening in the dark as she groans, “’M trying to sleeeeep…”

Beau mutters a sorry, then hears Fjord clear his throat with such a shit-eating grin she can see it without her goggles, realizes what he’s about to do and, panicked, “Fjord don’t you fucking dare!”

As he says, “Beau was just offering to adopt me into her dysfunctional family.”

May the worm come now and eat her. It would be a good death.

Jester spends no time before stifling her squeal in her hands and lurching out of her bedroll to collapse-trip-hug onto Beau and they both fall over. “Do you wanna be brother and sister Beau?! Can I do the ceremony, I’m sure there’s a ceremony, I can ask the Traveler or we could just make one up!”

“There’s not a… new sibling ceremony,” Fjord says. “Not that I’m aware of anyhow.”

Beau blurts, “You know what, I take it back, my family name is bullshit and I am not going to explain to the assholes how I randomly adopted a sword swallower when they barely wanted their actual kid.”

She’s struggling under Jester to get out, but Jester's nearly as strong as Yasha, and her grip gets even tighter until Beau can’t breathe so well. Fjord makes a resigned sort of half laugh and says, “Yeah, I figured,” because Beau went and fucked this up too. Gold star for her.

Jester, clung to Beau like an octopus, goes, “No, Beau’s right. Fuck her stupid parents if they didn’t want her. You can both have my name.” 

Oh. Beau thinks about that. Beauregard Lavorre. Tries to imagine having Jester there with her in the wide, cold halls of her home. It doesn’t work, Jester’s too bright for such a place, so she goes for growing up in the Lavish Chateau. Breaking out of Jester’s room to go fuck up the town and sneak back in before dawn. Fjord slips in that dream too, helping them out with their alibis unless they got him out too. Fuck, they could’ve run Nicodranus. 

Fjord joins the cramped hug pile, mostly on Jester’s side and just patting Beau’s shoulder, and this moment, both of them settled into the best she can do with her fucked up physical boundaries, not pressing, odd, awkward, and comfortable. A wave of something bitter and heavy and longing rolls through her, worse than anytime she saw a happy family in Kamordah. They could’ve had this if it weren’t for fate and the whole shitty reality. Maybe Caleb got part of that right; fuck the laws of the world, she wants this. Her throat’s closed up tight, though, clenching around a noise she will not ever make. She manages a nod against Jester’s neck.

“It’s settled then.” Jester grabs Beau's hand, places it on Fjord's, and Jester's own on top of the pile. “Your names are now Fjord and Beau Lavorre and I will forge the documents later.”

Fuck bloodlines, Beau thinks. She’s spilt enough of her own for this group of chaotic clusterfucks that it’s theirs now. Even if Caleb and Nott, and maybe Yasha or Deucie, if they want to hold onto their old names or new ones that’s fine. She’s given them her blood and whatever heart she has left, and that counts for something.


End file.
